May 12:
In October 1969 China was preparing for a Soviet nuclear attack. Around 940,000 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers, 4000 planes and 600 vessels were scattered, archives were transferred out of Beijing, and Chairman Mao moved to Wuhan. Historical Reference, published by the official People's Daily, also describes Soviet preparations for nuclear war against China and President Richard Nixon’s intervention on Beijing’s behalf. After clashes between the PLA and Soviet troops along the border, Moscow moved thousands of troops to the Chinese border, prepared its nuclear missiles, and told allies it planned a nuclear attack “to wipe out the Chinese threat.” The Soviets told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of their plans and asked the U.S. to remain neutral, but on Nixon’s orders Kissinger told the Soviet ambassador that in response to an attack against China, the U.S. would counterattack 130 Soviet cities with nuclear weapons. The Soviets backed down and the U.S. – China rapprochement began soon after.
[Editor’s Note: Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda interpreted
this article as China’s “clumsy attempt to improve relations with the United States.” The newspaper denied the Chinese account of events: “This is untrue. At that time the U.S. had an interest in conflict between the USSR and China and would not have intervened. The Soviet Union did indeed plan to use nuclear weapons against China, but only in the case of full-scale aggression by the PRC.”]
May 18:
Hong Kong’s Democratic Party Chairman Albert Ho Chun-yan and Fung Wai-wah of the Alliance for Universal Suffrage will meet with Beijing officials in Hong Kong. Beijing officials are demanding Hong Kong Democrats hold low-key commemorations for the June 4th Tiananmen Square anniversary. The Democrats have refused but have agreed not to demand Beijing overturn its verdict on the protests as counterrevolutionary. For their part the Democrats have demanded the central authorities clearly define its "promise on universal suffrage" for 2017 and 2020 and build a process to discuss Hong Kong's future constitutional development, the Ming Pao reports.
[Editor’s Note: The holding of this meeting can be considered a success for Hong Kong Democrats, five of whom provoked a parliamentary election last week when they resigned their position to call attention to the slow pace of democratic reform. The opposition lawmakers had wanted 30 percent turnout but only about 17 percent of Hong Kong's 3.4 million voters cast their ballots.]
May 19:
China’s National Computer Network Emergency Technical Team (CNCERT) has warned of a spike in Trojan horse viruses infecting mainland computers. There were 5,087 Chinese IP addresses infected last week, up 12 percent from the previous week, according a CNCERT report. The report said that more than 100 domain names registered in Poland with the suffix ".xorg.pl" and some other domain names suffixed ".cn" were being used to hack into Chinese computers using the malicious software, the official China Daily reports
.
May 20:
Seoul’s investigators have concluded that North Korea’s attack of a South Korean naval ship in March used a Chinese-made torpedo. Chinese characters were written on torpedo fragments collected from the scene where the Cheonan – a 1,200-ton South Korean patrol ship – broke in half and sank on March 26 killing 46 sailors. The weapon appears to be a heavy acoustic homing torpedo, known as a Yu-3G, the type North Korea imported from China in the 1980s, Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports. In response to the finding, the official Zhonguo Tongxun She reports that China faces two choices, “admit that the DPRK [is involved] with the sinking and stand together with a majority of countries to condemn the DPRK or [China must] say that it’s a bilateral issue between the two Koreas for them to solve through consultations.” The Hong Kong-based news agency also said, “China may also urge the DPRK to guarantee that similar incident will not occur again.”
